[bksvol-discuss] Re: proofreading questions
- From: Regina Alvarado <reggie.alvarado@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2012 16:45:21 -0400
Hmmmm! There was a decision made a while ago that – (M dashes) did not need the
2 dashes, just one. Perhaps someone took it to heart, not on this list I would
bet, and took both dashes out. I tend to believe it was the proofer. The way
I handle – is I put them up against the word before and after with only one
hyphen/dash. Many, many times I have seen spaces around the 2 dashes. I do
not know if that is scanning or books are being written that way now, but it
helps with reading continuity in Braille to have the spaces taken out.
Reggie
_____
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Judy s.
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2012 9:04 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: proofreading questions
Hi John,
I can answer the bit about books.google.com. It's unlikely that you would want
to change your page breaks in the scanned version .rtf to match the Google
copy. Your edition is probably a totally different edition than the one that
is on google books. I run into this all the time. Books can have 20 or 30
different editions, or even more, and the pagination will be different on each
edition.
The missing dash problem could have from a whole bunch of causes. I don't have
a fix for you as a proofreader to handle that easily, unless there is a
specific consistent pattern you can use to do a 'search and replace' for the
missing em dashes. One idea from the pattern you are seeing is to just do a
search for space space and then replace each of these that appear to be a
missing em dash with a hyphen hypen, Someone else here may have a better idea,
though.
I'm also a sighted volunteer with limitations that don't allow me to manipulate
a print book. There are a few of us in that boat that are volunteers here. I
use google book and amazon peek both when available, and when I can't get an
answer I need there or from the person who scanned the book I ask on the list
if someone can find the book and scan the page and send it to me.
Hope that helps,
Judy s.
On 7/26/2012 7:06 PM, John Simpson wrote:
I have several questions about the book that I am currently proofing. First
off, words that are followed by an "'s" have the apostrsphe over the
penultimate letter (e.g. Martin̓s). While this is not a showstopper, it does
require a fair amount of corrections. I guess my question is what causes this
kind of construction? Is it a function of the scan volunteer, the scanner
hardware, or the OCR software?
Secondly, I have gone to books.google.com to take a look at this book. My
question here is whether Google has a fair representation of the book. I know
that all but one page are present, but within the first several chapters, the
page breaks in the scanned version .rtf are not in the same place as they are
in Google's copy. I certainly don't want to have to go through the entire book
changing pagination based on Google. I do have a hold at my local library for
the print copy that will help answer this question. Any other advice would be
greatly appreciated.
The third question is that in the scanned version that I have from BookShare
there are frequent instances of two spaces, rather than one. The sense of the
book is that there should be a comma where the first space is. However, when
looking at the Google version, this separator is an m dash surrounded by
spaces. All of these dashes have been removed. Again, my question is whether
this is a function of the scan volunteer the scanner hardware or the OCR
software. Again, I do not wish to go through the entire print book looking for
dashes that I need to replace, or even to do a find on two spaces and see if
the meeting indicates a dash.
I am a sighted volunteer with physical limitations that do not allow me to
manipulate a print book. While I don't mind getting occasional assistance to go
to a specific page to verify my proofreading, I'm not able to scan a print book
and compare my scan to the BookShare .rtf version. If the Google
representation is accurate relative to the print book, I will be happy to use
that as a resource wherever possible.
Thanks for any and all suggestions.
John Simpson
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